


The Proposition

by levromethamphetamine



Category: The House of Atreus, The Iliad - Homer, The Oresteia - Aeschylus
Genre: F/M, Gen, TW for General Atreus House Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21963244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levromethamphetamine/pseuds/levromethamphetamine
Summary: Remember that scene from Better Call Saul where Mike argues with Nacho who wants him to kill Tuco? This is basically that but both characters have trauma and there is no good solution because it’s a tragedy Babey
Relationships: Aegisthus/Clytemnestra (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Agamemnon/Clytemnestra (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	The Proposition

She did not notice his entrance, but that was not uncommon. Often Clytemnestra dwelled deep within herself as she worked, blind to the outside world, and looked up from the loom to find herself accompanied by a servant quietly spinning, or sometimes Chrysothemis herself, the dutiful child carding wool, small hands weaving simple squares of white fabric. What was less common was the presence of a man- Agamemnon had at least announced his presence or waited to be beckoned in by his wife. The hub of textile production in the palace was, after all, in the women’s quarters, and here he stood, close enough to reach out and touch her if they had not been separated by the massive oak-and-bronze loom behind which Clytemnestra had been working since dawn.

Aegisthus’s lithe frame was dwarfed by the scale of the warp-weighted loom on which Clytemnestra had always woven her most important, elegant, detailed fabrics. She remembered, as she cast Aegisthus a sidelong, suspicious glance, how Agamemnon’s bulk and stature had always made the massive wooden structure seem smaller than it was.

“Why are you here”. She was curt and unsparing in her words. Aegisthus ignored her pointed tone and replied as if she had been perfectly cordial.

“My dear, there is something we must discuss. Truly I hate to disturb your… solitude, but it is an urgent matter, relatively. That is, a potential conflict we should seek to address. To find an answer to now.”

“Oh?” Clytemnestra did not deign to look at him as she spoke, her voice distant and dismissive, eyes locked on her work. He should not be here, in this space, intruding upon this last remaining bond between her and her daughter, and yet he was. And there was  _ we  _ again, that familiar little tic that wormed its way into his speech the way he had wormed his way into her bed-  _ we,  _ as if they were partners, as if he was somehow her equal, as if he did anything other than drape himself across her husband’s throne, dressed in her husband’s robes, and revel in his petty tyranny. 

“Believe me, it is only absolute necessity that drives me to this space. I know where I am not welcome. But the conflict we must discuss, well, it is… on the subject of your husband”.

She had been working as she spoke, granting Aegisthus less than minimal attention, but now Clytemnestra’s grip tightened and her arm froze, shuttle held aloft like an avenging blade, peering suspiciously at Aegisthus through the warp threads as though they were bars of a cage.  


It would be a lie to say time had erased memories of her husband, as it would be a lie to say time had eased her suffering. Indeed, the ill-starred relationship with Aegisthus she found herself entangled in, for better or worse, was driven more by the deep pain of losing Agamemnon, or rather the man she thought Agamemnon was, than any strong feelings on Aegisthus himself. The fine fabric before her, a half-finished victim of her hands, neurotic, compulsive, had been half-ripped from the loom in his name- but it also had been begun, when she thought of it in a certain light, because of him. That contrast is what still ached, two jagged edges inside her. On the loom, weft threads hung like strips of skin from a fresh wound, unbound, a garish echo of loss, raw and painful as if it were new. Even in his absence, Agamemnon remained, haunting the house, one more bloodstain, one more looming sin. 

“What of him” she snapped with final conviction, while inside she roared with pain. “The man is dead to me.” 

Aegisthus flinched at the harsh tone of her voice as she tried to convince herself of this with her fury.

“Dead to you yes, and I am well aware, but he is not, in effect,  _ dead _ to the rest of the world- and therein lies our problem” Aegisthus continued in the same smooth, soothing tenor, composing himself rather nicely, and flung himself onto a nearby chair, his hands folded together in a facsimile of cunning.

“As you are no doubt aware, the war for Helen has been waging for years with no end in sight-“

“It is about more than Helen. And the Trojan forces have the upper hand as of now, which you would know if you  _ could _ read the reports sent back from our scribes”

“- and yet.” Aegisthus pressed on as if she hadn’t spoken, though a brief look of shame crossed his face at “could”. “And yet, what if the Greeks should triumph and Agamemnon were to be spared? What would become of  _ us _ , if this were to happen and he were to return triumphant, especially if this return, unlikely as it may be, occurred sooner than assumed? Thus it is of utmost importance to consider our options. And therefore, we must come up with a plan to … .address this contingency- again, unlikely as it may be.” Aegisthus closed his speech with a pleasant smile, exuding blind confidence that contradicted wholly the obsequious deference of his words. He may have lived his earliest years on society’s fringes but Aegisthus spoke with the smooth confidence of a wealthy diplomat, of the ambassador who has the upper hand, Clytemnestra thought bitterly. He spoke, as always, like a quick-talking merchant trying to upsell a gullible nobleman with deep pockets, like a man accused of a capital offense whose life depended on his rhetoric.

Clytemnestra’s response was not half so eloquent nor elegant. Her words were clipped, focused, harsh. She had learned from Agamemnon not to mince them.

“You want to kill him.”

“There is, when you consider the realities of our situation and the circumstances of this contingency, no other viable solution, I am afraid. You know he would not tolerate my presence here. You know he would be furious about my position with regards to you. And he is not a man known for his gentle temperament nor his principled avoidance of violence.”

“You would have  _ us  _ kill him” Clytemnestra said with disbelief. “This man, twice your size, trained from childhood with the spear-”

“I agree that I could not take him in direct combat - I have not received near the same training. But I am not saying it is necessary to fight him. I am saying it will, eventually, be necessary to kill him. If I learned anything of value from my father, those are two completely different objectives.”   
_ Your grandfather as well.  _ Clytemnestra thought, but she did not give voice to this petulant, immature thought, pulled in by Aegisthus despite herself, ensnared subconsciously by his dangerous rhetorical flourishes. 

“And that, my dear, is where  _ you _ come in”. The sweetness in his voice was cloying.

He extended one long, wiry arm, unfolding his hand as though offering himself to her, but Clytemnestra did not take it.    
For what felt like minutes she thought he might give up-

and during this long, tense pause, Clytemnestra turned back to her work rather than choosing to meet Aegisthus’s eyes. The loom she had bent to her will for this particular project belied its prestige and yet dust coated the earliest weft threads- not enough though to obscure the faded motif recent work had been continuing to build upon. Now it was a confused, complicated project, messy and rough. It had been elegant once, when she had set the rich red and purple warp threads to form the backbone for her daughter’s wedding cloth so many lifetimes ago. She had torn the nascent work in her aggrieved fury immediately following her return but Clytemnestra had not been able to bring herself to truly, wholly un-string what she had begun after the wedding had become a funeral. Now she was re-working, repairing, expanding, weaving what would eventually serve as a haphazard funerary shroud. 

It was a purely symbolic, sentimental project; what remained of her body after the sacrifice had been buried long ago, with the ceremony and wealth befitting a princess. No shroud woven by Clytemnestra’s hand had adorned her daughter’s body or burial chamber- she had refused to bury her with what would have been her wedding cloth, unfinished as it was, the richest object of her dowry. Following its sudden wounding, she had spent most of the first few months in tears, so shattered and devastated she could barely keep herself alive, let alone properly honor the child she had lost. But how could she possibly put her hands to work on anything else?

That, of course, was when Aegisthus had crept back into the palace like a plague and entered her life. In her darkest hours and the depths of her agony he had kissed her tears from her cheeks, he had whispered in her ear as he wound her hair around his fingers and took her hands in his own and encouraged her to nurture her pain, cultivate it, let it take root inside her and flourish in its own dark, cruel way.

It had changed her, she knew. And now the work she returned to with the finest thread she had spun since the war began was the very shroud, fitting for a wedding-turned-funeral, begun before Iphigenia’s death and irreparably marred by it, as was Clytemnestra herself. There was no chance it would lie with her daughter’s body now, but it was a mother’s duty to properly honor children she lost. For so long, she had thought this was all she could do, but now....

Aegisthus’s eyes followed her gaze to her work, focused on her slow deft movements as she picked up her shuttle again. Viewed through the thin red bars of the weft threads, Aegisthus looked as though he were bleeding from fine, exact wounds, as though his was the murder being discussed.

“He wouldn’t suspect  _ you _ ” Aegisthus began, slowly, voice dripping honey. “If you… assisted me with this scheme- no, with this  _ plan _ \- we would gain a significant advantage. And while your participation is not strictly speaking necessary, would you not feel vindicated if you at least gripped the handle of the weapon in his chest, hm?” 

Clytemnestra bristled. Flattery to this degree made her nervous in any setting. As Agamemnon’s queen it meant the speaker was plying the Mycenaean state for more than they should grant. As Aegisthus’s partner, it meant he was similarly seeking to use her for his own gain in some way. “If you were to assist me, we would have- no,  _ you _ would have no need to overpower him”

“We would kill the strongest king in recent history without overpowering him?” Clytemnestra muttered under her breath, slamming the next weft thread into its predecessors with a particularly vicious shove of the comb. 

“We could take him by surprise- it would be ill advised to try and kill a warrior on the battlefield, but when he believes he is secure, my dear, his guard will be down. And here is where you would come in. He trusts you, he is deeply familiar with you, and you yourself are a valuable tool. You are remarkably clever, intelligent, talented- We - _ you _ could set some kind of trap, could you not?”

“What, like a snare? Are we committing regicide or catching a rabbit” she shot back mockingly.

Aegisthus flinched at that word too, as if the weight of it were too much to bear upon his narrow shoulders. 

“It would be in self defense!” Aegisthus protested, voice rising to a shout. All vain flattery and pretense to civility vanished like dewdrops at midday. “If I didn’t know any better I would think you had no desire to grant the man who killed your daughter with his _bare_ _hands_ the end he deserves!” 

Clytemnestra’s hands twisted into claws and her eyes narrowed, radiating fury and contempt. “Don’t you  _ dare- _ ” she began slowly, but Aegisthus continued, blazing.

“- do you really think he would allow you to live with him, allow you to live  _ at all _ knowing we had been together? Do you think he would allow  _ me  _ to live?! It would be pre-emptive, I grant you, but-“

“That’s what it is about then, is it! Be honest! Do not lie about what it is you intend or why!” Clytemnestra snarled, unable to stand another second. At least Agamemnon had been honest, blunt, straightforward. Aegisthus’s every word was an exercise in oratorical performance, and convincing as it could be when he brought out his natural charm, it wore increasingly thin the longer he employed it. 

“This is not about his fury or our safety and by the gods it is  _ NOT _ about my daughter! You want the throne for yourself, you only seek revenge for the murder of your father- or should I say grandfather!”

“ **WOMAN** , **COULD** you or **COULD** you not create a trap!” He bellowed, pounding on the wood, bristling at the reference to the crime that was his lineage. It was a low blow, but Clytemnestra did not regret striking it.  
  
“What sort of  _ trap _ are you considering” Clytemnestra replied, voice dripping contempt. 

“You can weave, can you not?” Aegisthus sounded almost desperate, erratic. One hand waved vaguely at the loom Clytemnestra stood behind as though it was self-evident what she should do. “Why not weave, instead of a… robe, or a big… length of fabric or whatever is normally done, weave an- an elaborate net of sorts that would… pin his hands, or something along those lines?”

His profound ignorance on the process and products of weaving belied the extent to which this  _ plan,  _ for all his enthusiasm and soaring oratory,  was more of an idea. He had selected a destination but neglected to build or even plan a road- a fatal flaw and a not uncommon feature of Aegisthus’s many schemes. Clytemnestra narrowed her eyes and set her lips in a thin, irritated line.

“So I would ensnare him and you would deal the fatal blow to him, is that it? With sword, I assume? I am to approach the man in all his strength with a woven ... trap in my hands and you slither in once he has been incapacitated to finish off the prey I will have caught!” she snarled. “You would have me assume the risk and you would take the glory- what glory there can be in such an action!”

“I would be the one, in this case, to... end his life” Aegisthus said euphemistically, growing almost more agitated the more concrete the plan became. He fidgeted unconsciously with the hilt of a flashy bronze dagger tied to his waist with a dashing strip of silk. If Clytemnestra did not know of his enthusiasm for the idea, she would think his hands were trembling.

“And you do not  _ have _ to weave a net it was only a suggestion. If you have a better idea I am aching to hear it” he continued, like a child losing an argument.

“I do not recall being the one to propose to you that I kill my husband” she muttered and whipped her shuttle through the warp threads in a single, savage strike. But it was not the image of Agamemnon that drove her to fury. 

“But if you are to be believed…” 

Her voice trailed off and while considering Aegisthus’ weak, vague proposal of a net (so small-minded!), her eyes lit on another elegantly woven red cloth, lying crumpled on the stone floor rather than hanging in a place of honor, despite its value and beauty. 

It was the nuptial cloth received upon her marriage to Agamemnon, featuring garish depictions of the violence that had spawned both her husband and her current consort. Tantalus and Pelops, Thyestes and Atreus, the vicious cycle re-created, the cloth itself long and wide enough for a robe or coverlet or wall-hanging but too horrific in its imagery to serve as any. Agamemnon himself has eschewed it, preferring instead the rich robe Clytemnestra had woven for him upon their engagement, given on their wedding day. 

She picked it up, unfolded it, drank in the crudely wrought scenes, marred by streaks and slashes of red thread as if the cloth itself bled, with her whole heart.

_ It is missing the next link  _ Clytemnestra thought bitterly. 

She peered over the cloth’s edge at Aegisthus, who feigned aloof nonchalance while she deliberated. He wore Agamemnon’s robes as usual, today an elaborate purple bordered with gold, wrapped twice around his narrow frame and pooling still at his hands and feet.

And then…

“A robe could serve as a net” she finally said. Aegisthus perked up. 

“Yes! Then it wouldn’t be an obvious trap, gods your insight is a gift, my dear-“ 

Aegisthus continued prattling, but Clytemnestra tuned him out. 

If she were to weave one of her own, she thought, she would account for the House’s most recent crime. Iphigenia had not been buried with the shroud she still picked at, fretted over. This could serve her memory in its absence- and was it not, in a way, even more just? Was it not what she deserved?

_ It’s what she would want. _

Clytemnestra felt a deep betraying ache in the lowest lost depths of her heart as she tried to convince herself of this new truth; she clutched the fabric close to her chest as though it were connected to her daughter already.

“I am still unsure” she admitted , as much to herself as to Aegisthus, interrupting his useless stream of words.

“Oh? How so, my dear?”

“If we are to do this our planning must be immaculate. This is lord Agamemnon we mean to kill, we must plan commensurate to his skill and, to speak honestly, I doubt your dedication-“

“You doubt  _ my  _ dedication?” Aegisthus said, deeply affronted. “What else have I been planning for! My father, my very  _ life-“ _

_ “Your  _ words mean nothing! They always have!” Clytemnestra shouted with a ferocity that cowed Aegisthus as she rose and drew herself to her full height.   
“You are always saying things your heart does not mean, I can see it in your eyes!”

Aegisthus bit his lip, sighed, re-centered himself, accepting the rebuke with a curt as if he’d realized, finally, the wisdom of her words. Or at least, that was the image he was trying to convey. One could never be sure with Aegisthus what his true intentions were.

  
“I am convinced” he said finally. “Let us work together then, to devise a plan of attack, as it were. Something that … inspires confidence in my abilities, and draws upon yours.”

  
Clytemnestra did not respond, quietly fuming, wrestling with an unspoken inner conflict, a deep pain and fear she could not identify.

  
“I will start.” Aegisthus continued undaunted, striding across the room with a king’s confidence, as when he dictated to his scribes (or sometimes to Clytemnestra herself).

“First, it is necessary that we attack when he is alone.”

“There are guards throughout the palace” Clytemnestra replied flatly.

“Not necessarily, not always.” He countered.

“Where, then, is the man unguarded?”

“There are guards throughout the palace I admit, but they do not literally, constantly stalk the halls, and besides, the guards are inured to my presence, and will obviously not look askance at you. We wait until he is walking, unaccompanied-“

“The guards may be suspicious of your presence if you sidle through the halls carrying a weapon” Clytemnestra pointed out. “And this assumes you will be allowed to exist in the castle upon his return. The guards may be less  _ inured _ to your presence once their  _ true _ king returns.”

“When the man is dead  **_I_ ** will be their true king!” Aegisthus snarled, whirling around to glare at her. “And as of now I can do whatever I want in the palace, armed or not!”

“You will lose that freedom when Agamemnon returns unless he is killed before he becomes aware of your presence!” Clytemnestra replied with equal vitriol.    
“And I will not bring anyone else into this conspiracy - two are more than enough.”

Aegisthus gritted his teeth, paused in his long strides. “You’re right, I admit. Thus, we must… handle him, as soon upon his return as possible. If we take him by surprise when he returns-“

Clytemnestra placed a hand upon her hip, cocking one eyebrow in skeptical disbelief. “‘Take him by surprise?’ Expand upon this, please. Enlighten me as to how we could feasibly ‘take him by surprise’”.

“We- we could strike suddenly, we could pounce on him while he was alone-“ Aegisthus switched from striding to pacing, gesturing with his hands as if he were pulling ideas out of the ether. 

“But when?” Clytemnestra shot back, annoyed. “Immediately when he arrives, assuming he arrives triumphant, he will be surrounded by his lieutenants, his footmen, slaves, prizes, priests, scribes, sycophants and citizens. He will be anything  _ but _ alone.”

“After that then- when he has retired to bed, surely he will be alone, alone except for you that is and _then-“_

“When will that be?” She shot back. “There will be a statement, a ceremony, a parade, a sacrifice, a feast. I presume he will want a bath as well. He may eventually retire to bed but it will be hours after the victory is celebrated.”

“I can wait. I have waited this long.” His fingers tightened on the hilt of his sword as though he could sense Agamemnon’s presence at that very moment. They did not, however, stop their shaking. Aegisthus did not seem to notice.

“An absurd statement. Where will you wait, pray tell? Will you lurk in our bedroom, hidden under our bed with your knife out, waiting to spring once I set the trap?” 

“Not necessarily _in_ **_his_** bedroom-“ Aegisthus countered, emphasizing both words, like Clytemnestra’s connection with her husband had been long severed. In some ways, he was right, but she still thought of the bedroom as theirs, still felt a vague sense of betrayal when she shared their bed - in her mind it still was _their_ bed- with Aegisthus. 

“How many seconds between when I entrap him and when you kill him?” Clytemnestra interrupted.

“Come, it must be exact,” she continued, justifying herself when his face showed clear exasperation with what he clearly saw as nitpicking. “it must be planned down to the smallest detail- this is a king we aim to kill. Do you plan to leave me at his mercy until you rush in or would you have me drive the blade home myself and save your skin entirely!”

“You speak of seconds! Will he be capable of doing any damage-“ 

“He is stronger than I am in the body. Not to mention, there are weapons in our bedroom, his sword will be close at hand if he has undressed in the room, and he is a trained commander twice my size! If I ensnare him and he is not instantly killed, I would be run through in a heartbeat!”

Aegisthus opened his mouth to protest but Clytemnestra cut him off, close to raging-

“And that plan you attempt to formulate only works assuming he  _ gets _ to  _ our _ bedroom” she put special emphasis on the  _ our  _ to irritate him, and felt a vindictive, petty little thrill when she saw him wince. Gods, Aegisthus could so easily being out the most childish side of her. 

“He will most certainly have been cavorting with slave-girls and captured prizes throughout the war. He will not deign to bring a mistress into  _ our _ house but he may go out to her to celebrate his victory. Then what of your scheme?”

“There are other options,” Aegisthus responded with slow, focused, measured words. “We could kill him beforehand, say, when he makes sacrifice for the safe return. That would be some form of poetic justice for his actions, would it not? Blood for blood, both poured into the altars, given to the gods.

Clytemnestra looked taken aback. “That would be sacrilege!” 

“Religious piety has never meant much to me” Aegisthus said bitterly. 

“Nor to the rest of your family” Clytemnestra hissed. “Besides, there is no guarantee he will be alone then. He may be accompanied yet by priests and other worshippers, desperate to take part in the king’s ritual. It has happened when he returned from smaller wars” she added to bolster her argument.

“Not during sacrifice then, right. Well, we could kill him long after he has fallen asleep. And if he were killed in his bed….we could even make it look like an accident…” Aegisthus was back in his element, having switched effortlessly from one fruitless scheme to another. Clytemnestra scoffed openly. 

“Again, where would you hide in the intervening hours? Are you willing to risk detection and prosecution, an exile whose presence in the very kingdom, let alone in the palace, marks you out for death? Are you  _ capable  _ of avoiding either? How am I to ensnare him if I am in his bed, without waking the man himself?”

“You told me he was a heavy sleeper!” Aegisthus protested, but Clytemnestra shut him down with a dismissive flick of her hand.  
“No, I said he snored loudly. He is a light sleeper; his childhood has marked him so, the slightest sound will rouse him and in the absence of any he will still frequently wake from nightmares. Imagine the consequences if he were to wake unexpectedly to see us looming over him, weaponry in hand.”

“We _would_ have the element of surprise-“

“ _**We would both die** ” _ Clytemnestra insisted. “I have lived with Agamemnon for fifteen years, I know the man’s strength!”

“You _knew_ his strength” Aegisthus corrected. “No man is stronger at fifty than twenty-five. I am younger, faster-“

“You are younger but speed and strength do not necessarily follow- and I must remind you that you have been living a life of decadence while he has been fighting on a foreign field for years. We must ensure we are not at all suspected, we must avoid all detection, if in fact it is possible we must indeed ‘take him by surprise’- and I have not yet touched on the idiocy of claiming a sword-wound could be made to mimic a natural death” Clytemnestra replied scornfully.

Aegisthus fumed, finally, satisfyingly silenced.

“What about,” he said after long seconds of silence, making one last desperate attempt to convince Clytemnestra of his plan’s validity. “Could you trap him after undressing him- switch one cloth for another-“

“This would be impractical. Indeed this whole project seems increasingly impossible. I  _ could _ weave a robe with which to trap him but if our chances of success are so slim, if we cannot find that perfect moment in which to strike…” Clytemnestra’s voice trailed off and her eyes lit again on the garish wedding cloth depicting the House- her house now, for better or worse- in all its gore and glory. It was tempting to try and answer injustice the way Aegisthus planned but maybe, maybe-

“We have no choice.” Aegisthus interrupted her fragile, fraying thoughts and she whipped her head upward, turned her gaze on him, eyes burning with tears and a painful fury.

“You mean YOU have no choice! I can reason with him, I could lie, I could throw you out onto the street-“

“And try to build a life with the man who murdered your eldest daughter?!”

“You  _ need  _ him dead,” Clytemnestra said, shocked, something like horror slowly dawning on her. “You need him dead and you know you could not defeat him in combat, you could not defeat him as a man ought, and thus you need me to fulfill this… this cruel, violent role.”

She clutched the cloth tighter, eyes lighting on the penultimate scene: The conception of Aegisthus, the murder of Atreus. There he stood, in the shadow of his father, disappearing from the story’s thread once Agamemnon had retaken the throne. 

_ Am I but a tool?  _ She thought, tracing the lines of the sword Aegisthus held, picked out in brown and golden thread to emulate bronze.

Aegisthus slumped in his chair, deflated. “You routinely defeat me” he admitted. “What hope do I have against your husband?”

The display moved Clytemnestra to pity, and her posture visibly softened, though her face was still flint-sharp. 

“But why,” she said, only just more gently. “He showed you mercy. This would be such a risk, such a danger- and you are not one for either.”

At this Aegisthus’s eyes narrowed but Clytemnestra pressed on, not giving him a chance to protest.

“You have nothing tethering you here. If he were to return from war _tomorrow_ you could just… leave, as silently as you came.” She sounded, to her own ears, almost envious. Though of what she could not say.

“You assume. I fear- I do not know if I have that option anymore. I- I do not think I ever did.”

Clytemnestra did not respond to the correction. 

“I don’t know, even if I wanted to leave, I don’t know if I can.” His voice wavered and he turned the small bronze knife over in his hand, shaking slightly.

“And in addition- there is something keeping me here- you.”

Clytemnestra scoffed but Aegisthus looked at her with a gaze so intense, so uncharacteristically  _ honest _ , that it cut her off. “and assume I  _ were _ to leave- and you were left with him, forced to play the dutiful wife, to bathe him and weave his clothes and share his bed, take his hand as if it were not stained still with Iphigenia’s blood.”

Clytemnestra was the one who flinched now. “Do not say her name. You do not deserve- and as though my own hands-” 

“‘Nothing will ever be the same ever again’” Aegisthus cut Clytemnestra’s halting speech off with her own words, familiar and haunting, ancient at the same time. “You said that to me our first night together, right when he had left you. It was all around you then, the blood, the fear.”

“Time cannot wash out blood,” he continued , while Clytemnestra glared at him, eyes filling with angry tears. He brushed them away with his thumb, carefully and gently running his hand over the sharp curve of her cheekbone just as he had done years ago, when she had cried just this way. The tears burned just the same.

“My very existence is proof of that” he continued in a solemn whisper.

“Time  _ cannot _ wash out blood - your blood, mine, ours- so yes, I need him dead. and so do you. And thus I need you, because on my own, there is nothing I can do.”

He clasped her hand in both of his, still trembling, and stood up, looking at her beseechingly, eyes wide with desperation. Clytemnestra did not rise with him.

“I put little trust in your plans”. Clytemnestra replied, her voice hollow. Her eyes were still locked on the ground.

“What do you propose then” Aegisthus snapped.

When Clytemnestra failed to respond, he scowled and jerked his head away, unable to coat his frustration in the requisite flattery a second longer.

“Who knows” Aegisthus said, exasperated. “Maybe he’ll die in the war and won’t come home at all.”

He turned on his heel with typical melodrama, cape flaring out behind him, and strode out of the women’s quarters with sudden resolute anger, slamming the door behind him. 

The sound echoed throughout the dark, empty room like a thunderclap.

And Clytemnestra, alone with her thoughts now, hand resting now on the hidden hilt of the two-headed bronze axe lying in ominous wait underneath a skein of new-spun wool, felt a sinking fear within her. Some deep hidden part of her ached, a quiet foreign pang in her heart, at the thought of Agamemnon’s death. The part which had loved him first and loved him still. 


End file.
